I could feel my face burn with flush as I looked up, my boss still talking. The others who sat around the table were giving me the side eye, aware — and amused — that I was totally busted.

I wasn’t listening to the bossman. But it was important.

I was on the facepage.

Dealing with a bully.

Womp womp.

There’s this mean girl who won’t leave me alone. Yes. Mean Girl. Like the movie. The one with Regina George.

Only this mean girl isn’t a teenager in a fictional film. She’s a grown ass woman. A REAL one. I’ve been around her forever but frankly didn’t notice how awful she was. But here she is, once again, terrorizing me on that stupid facepage.

Her name?

Narcissism.

And holy hell is she kind of a bitch.

I don’t know when this actually happened, but it’s been happening for a while now, and it’s especially noticeable on social media. She is snarky and blunt. She cuts people off (as much as you can do in type). She has favorites and rolls her eyes at other people’s posts. She screen grabs them so she can show them and sneer about it with others. She is ALWAYS RIGHT. Don’t even try to argue, she’s in your face with her rightness and her-let-me-prove-its.

And she’s not letting up.

I’ll give her this though…

She. Is. Adorable.

I have officially entered the most ridiculous phase of my adult life. At 41, I find myself glued to my smart phone. Clicking on apps, counting up likes, posting nonsense, pissing people off.

And I don’t know what the hell is going on.

We spend all this time giving aggressive eyerolls to the youth of world. Those Millenials. They’re so full of themselves. They think it’s important to post photos of every scone they eat, every outfit they wear, and god forbid they don’t announce when they go to the gym. We get it. You do pilates.

But the fact is, if they are full of themselves, its only because someone else is feeding it. And that someone is pretty much the rest of us. For as Gen X as still am (hello, I have THREE butterflies tattooed on me!), I’m as self absorbed as anyone else.

It’s not a bad thing, to be self absorbed. To a point. I mean, sure, there are a handful of truly selfless folks in the world. But pretty much zero of them are on the facepage. It’s quite literally your own internet page with your name on the top and every word typed is about your thoughts and your feels and your needs and your hilarious whatevers.

I found myself recently counting likes.

And then?

Then I was comparing them.

“I have more likes than her, and she’s kind of a beast, so I am totally winning.”

“More people looked at my post than his post, score.”

“I’ll just type this” *clackity clackity clack* “And…… boom, send.”

Did I mention how old I am?

Yes. I’m 41 years old. FORTY-ONE.

Which is how many more likes I got than that jerk, zing!

I kid.

Kind of.

I’m older than Joan of Arc and the Virgin Mary COMBINED, and I’m counting my likes. And getting annoyed at people for not liking me more, or faster, or better, or in a more vocal way. I can only assume that the people who don’t fall all over themselves over my words are all…

Because they certainly are talking about me behind my back. There is no other explanation. They can’t stop talking about me. That’s why they aren’t talking about me.

Wait. What…

Seriously.

I’ve become such a narcissist about my social media, I’ve literally gotten in ACTUAL fights about it. Because people are talking. And they might be talking about me. They probably are. I need to go check.

While my boss — a real and actual person who gives me money — is ACTUALLY talking to me.

And then finally make it back home, where I sit at home and obsess over it more.

Not the assignment my boss just handed me. No no. I obsess over the likes.

This is officially the dumbest I have ever been in my entire life. Most of the people who I interact with in this way? I don’t really even know them. I think I do. But I don’t. And since there’s enough narcissism to go around, I think it’s only fair to say, they are pretty much in the same boat.

I took the facepage app off my phone. I had to. I can’t stop clicking it. And reading. And deciding what’s about me even when it makes no sense that it could be, but I’ve turned into someone so self absorbed I think that EVERY COMMENT IS HIDING AN AGENDA.

And who am I ignoring in the mean time?

The ones who do know me. The ones who are talking about me. The ones who talk to me. The ones who I want to talk about more than anything else in the world.

I can’t break up with the facepage. I love her too much.

But I have GOT to rid myself of this narcissist. She’s such a nasty bully.

Take that, narcissist. I’m done with you.

*end note — Writing a long blog post all about myself saying that I am done making everything all about me… now that’s just comedy.

Do you remember that episode of Friends (of course you do) when Joey was writing a letter of recommendation to the adoption agency for Monica and Chandler, and Ross showed him how to use the thesaurus (so he’d sound smarter)?

I felt like that was what was happening as I was reading the now-famous “Conscious Uncoupling” break-up “announcement” from Brad Pitt’s ex-girlfriend with the idiotic lifestyle blog who was in that one movie I liked. You know. The one where Kevin Spacey cut her head off?

WHAT’S IN THE BOX???

It’s your dignity, Gwyn.

The more I attempted to read her ridiculous letter, the more I thought, she DID use the thesaurus!! Because, I mean, see for yourself if you haven’t read it yet:

It is with hearts full of sadness that we have decided to separate. We have been working hard for well over a year, some of it together, some of it separated, to see what might have been possible between us, and we have come to the conclusion that while we love each other very much we will remain separate. We are, however, and always will be a family, and in many ways we are closer than we have ever been. We are parents first and foremost, to two incredibly wonderful children and we ask for their and our space and privacy to be respected at this difficult time. We have always conducted our relationship privately, and we hope that as we consciously uncouple and coparent, we will be able to continue in the same manner.

Love,

Gwyneth & Chris

Then they used a happy photo of themselves, to show that they are still UNITED (I assume). I don’t want to use it without permission, so….

~visual approximation~

Pretty close.

Anyway.

Conscious uncoupling? I’m sorry, but isn’t that what happens when, you know, the sex is over?

I decided to try it Joey’s way. And you know what? I think I out-Gwyneth Paltrow’d Gwyneth Paltrow. I present…..

Cognizant Rupture

It is with blood pumping organs in animate beings full of despondency that we have decided to cleave. We have been laboring dense for well over an orbital period of the Earth moving around the sun, some of it en masses, some of it partitioned, to see what might have been duck soup between us, and our own selves have come to the culmination that while we adulate each other copious amounts we will remain sovereign. We are, per contra, and always will be a genealogy network, and in multitudinous ways we are proximate than we have ever been. We are fountainheads early and A-1, to two incredibly staggering progeny and we ask for their and our unlimited three-dimensional realm and concealment to be venerated at this enigmatical epoch. We have always regulated our liaison clandestinely, and we hope that as we cognizantly rupture and cofountainhead, we will be able to loiter in the same idiosyncrasy.

Every 20-something has the same thing happen to them. A moment in time (and that moment may last an extended period) when they are just. so. stupid. And in this moment of idiocy, they mutter things like “I’ll never…” They’re having some sort of lame quasi-protest of things they’ll never do. They don’t actually have a reason for finding it unacceptable, yet they lack the skills to just say, “meh, I don’t like that.”

So rather than just not comment on something they dislike, or comment that it’s not their thing, they proclaim!! that they will NEVER….

Case in point:

Oh my god I will NEVER drive a minivan!!

That was pretty much the mantra of my generation. Lord help you if you did anything as horrifying as get behind the wheel of one of these. For god’s sake, why not just un-pop your collar or wear *gasp* bootcut jeans.

Well, sooner or later, you realize, as horrifying as it is, you are that age — you gotta have the minivan. And even if you never ACTUALLY drive one, you’re more like, meh. I’m sure there are things far worse, far more embarrassing. OTHER things that I would NEVER do.

Well, ladies, you’re doing it.

And it’s this:

OH MY GOD Y’ALL!

It’s *WINE* time!!!

There’s this whole Pinterest “movement” I’ll call it, and it’s all about the love of WINE! They have JOKES!

Get it? Ha ha!! You know that you can BUY that? Someone will print that out for you and send it to you. But you have to pay for it. And that person is probably a genius, because she knows that people are so drunk on wine that they’ll buy ANYTHING.

It’s the thing that the cool kids are looking at and thinking, oh my god, HOW DO I AVOID THAT?

I. Will. Never…

Not all of them. Sure, some of them are perfectly capable of appreciating a decent glass of wine. Just like some folks were perfectly capable of not giving a damn what they were driving, as long as it went.

But for the most part, dudes. You’re like, MAKING SOME SERIOUS LOVE to your wine. It’s pornographic. You’re all “ooooohhhhhhhh wine” because you don’t seem to know that it’s a drink. It can’t hear you. It’s old fruit, fruit that got so old, it went all stinky, and then someone was like “ah cool I’ll squeeze it into a bottle, some fool will drink it” and YOU ARE THE FOOL.

There was a time when you were like “how can I avoid being the weirdo that my mother is” and now you ARE. Maybe her vice wasn’t wine. Maybe it was Gloria Vanderbilt jeans or Dr. Scholl’s flip flops or Canfield’s Diet Chocolate Soda. But it was weird and changed her and you SWORE but LOOK. Look at you dude. LOOK.

And all the regular wine drinkers are like, ah man, suburban moms are KILLING MY WINE!

I mean, for the love.

Not only are you drinking what I can only assume are pound and pounds of old grapes in a single sitting, then you justify it by PLAYING WITH THE GARBAGE:

It’s not just that these are do-it-yourself wine garbage crafts, but there are TEN of them.

Including stuff like this:

Forever is today?

What?

That doesn’t even make SENSE. And how many CORKS is that? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, holy shit I cannot possibly keep counting because NOW I’M SAD.

And those 10 DIY Wine Garbage Projects are one of the SMALLER suggestions on these here internets for what to do with your used corks.

I mean:

That’s FURNITURE.

Furniture made with WINE CORKS. And it is one of THIRTY suggestions on this particular drunkenenabling crafting page.

Not to worry, though. You can make furniture out of your beer bottles too.

But it’s not really presented in quite the crafty quaint fun loving Pinteresty way. If you’re a beer drinker, the suggestions are more along the lines of:

Yes. Because nothing says “I drink too much” like shards of glass in your bum as you sit on the dock by the bay. You make a cork buffet, and you are AMAZING. But you make one of these bad boys, and your parents and siblings are suddenly holding an intervention. Maybe if you stenciled “Forever is Today” across the side it would be classier.

Seriously.

WHAT THE HELL IS THIS EVEN?

Wine is stupid. And it tastes bad. I want the wine movement to go AWAY and to take its Pinterest pages with it. And to stop giving women a bad name. We don’t all love you, wine! We don’t!!!

I certainly don’t know Maria Kang, right? So basically, her story was, she posted this picture on her Facebook page. And I guess she posted it quite some time ago. But for some “mysterious” reason, it suddenly was gaining attention.

Sidebar – does anyone really think it was mysterious? Really? She was just all, how did THAT happen? Really? She didn’t spread it around at all, pushing for some publicity? For her website? And her product? Really? Okay then…

Maria Kang. She has her own website. Never heard of her before. Have you? I mean, before THIS? Probably not. And had this photo not “mysteriously” gained some sort of attention that prompted people respond to her public Facebook page, which prompted her to write kind of a bitchy response, which prompted her to get her very own trend on the old Google, which prompted her to do the morning talk show circuit, which prompted her to get MORE hits on her website, well, you get the point.

So anyway, Maria here said that she wasn’t being rude when she wrote “What’s your excuse?” She wasn’t shaming people for not looking like her. She was just nicely suggesting, while mostly naked, that maybe people try their best to get in a workout most days! That’s all! I mean, sure, ten, 15 years from now, that photo will be stroke material for her sons’ friends. But she’s just trying to SUPPORT and INSPIRE the rest of us. YOU. This is SUPPORT for YOU. Her near NUDITY is all for YOU!

I say good for her. I think it’s a positive message. I think we could ALL learn a lesson this way.

If only pediatric oncologists would post photos of themselves tending to dying children with the graphic “What’s your excuse?” overhead, Maria would be a pediatric oncologist.

If only Rhodes Scholars would post photos of themselves with their books and stuff with the graphic “What’s your excuse?” overhead, Maria would be a Rhodes Scholar.

If only Tom Brady would put “What’s your excuse?” on a poster, I’m sure Maria would be an insufferable douchebag (come to think of it, she may have a Tom Brady poster).

Well, I’m inspired.

I’ve created some posters of my own, with the hopes of paying it forward:

I hope I return the favor that Maria Kang has so graciously bestowed upon me, and inspire her right back!

Me – “But I have to spend money to look this good for you!” *waves arms in sexy motion around bod*

Jim – “Tough! Pay your way or get out!”

Me – “You are a killer of dreams.”

And just like that, my days of being a small town newspaper reporter were over.

Okay, it wasn’t quite like that, but I mean, it was kind of close. Let’s just say the times, they are a-changing. And in a move that I can only describe as good for the soul, the mind, the creative spirit, and the pocketbook, we decided to shop around to see if there were any other opportunities out there for me.

The assumption was that it would take months and months. No problem, I thought, I’ll send out some of my fancy resumes that I made with the fancy resume-maker that I found on the google, and then I’ll sit back and enjoy the summer. Hooray!

*ring*

Hello? Yes, this is Marney… An interview? Sure.

Y’all, I GOT A JOB. Like, lightning fast. I mean, it’s not that unusual seeing as I am a human bucket of awesome, but still. It was kind of cool.

So what does the writer who thinks that Sears is high class and TJ Maxx is legitimately swanky (dude, I bought a dress there with SEQUINS, hello!!) do when she leaves her writing job?

She gets a job as a writer. In high end fashion. Of course.

No really.

Technically, my title is “Social Media Manager” which means that I am in charge of all sorts of stuff that gets out to the public. You know, info and stuff. But I think what I really am, still, is a writer. It’s my job to write all about this kinda cool fashion and these fairly spectacular dresses that are all part of this line. They are like, cool.

See, my writing skills are coming in handy already!

Anyway, when you get a job in a place that creates fashion, you feel compelled to dress reasonably nice, even though they are clearly not turning to YOU for fashion advice seeing as they’ve been doing this a whole lot longer and oh yeah, there’s that whole Sears and TJ Maxx thing you got going on, as previously mentioned.

So this means I have become a girl who can not walk out of the house without getting approval from others on what goes on my bod. Via the selfie.

A “selfie” is hip cool youngfolk talk for “self portrait with your cell phone.” There are several types of selfies:

The demure “look how sweet I am, my hand is just naturally resting on my lip, showing off my wildly big ring and come hither expression, I wonder if anyone will ever know I had to take this photo 100 times to get it right for my Facebook profile photo” selfie.

The “hey maybe if I drop syrup on myself no one will notice how incredibly freaking skinny I am” selfie.

The “idiot duck face” selfie.

The “Amanda Bynes has lost her friggin’ mind” selfie.

The “watch me go from buff hottie to total douchebag simply by virtue of taking this photo” selfie.

And most important, the “check out what I am wearing” selfie. As you can see, it’s not just for the ladies who want to know if these flowered pants make their butt pop out (they do). It’s also for the gents who care about their self styling, like this fool and his bitchin’ 3/4 length tee.

It’s the last one here that I have officially fallen prey to. Apparently, I need to know how I look, and a glimpse at myself is just not enough.

This really happened:

If you are color blind, you cannot even tell that I am wearing something different everyday.

Apparently what has really changed isn’t my job. It’s my ability to leave the house without approval.

So there was this story going around on the facepage about some things that Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries said about the acceptable clientele of his over-priced trendy mall retail store. Mr. Jeffries, frankly, doesn’t want to see the fatties and uglies inside his store best known for near-naked models and one really annoying 90’s pop song.

“We go after the cool kids,” Jeffries told Salon. “We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”

The article passed around on the facepage, which appeared on Elite Daily (and also ends suddenly and hilariously) explained further, but to break it down, basically, Mr. Jeffries said that Abercrombie & Fitch has a target audience, and that audience is skinny. And really, that was the jist of it. Mr. Jeffries associates skinny with young and pretty, so therefore if you are skinny, you belong in his trendy clothes. He wants people with washboard abs in his clothes. He never wants people in his clothes who do NOT have washboard abs as the people with washboard abs will apparently not want to be seen in the same clothing.

Side note – if I had washboard abs, I would NOT wear Abercrombie & Fitch. I’d wear a bra everywhere. So people could SEE MY WASHBOARD ABS. Sheesh.

Abercrombie & Fitch does not bother making bigger women’s sizes (though, they do for men, because male athletes are also super cool and worthy of wearing their line).

I gotta be honest. I had no idea. And mostly, I don’t really care. I don’t bother walking into Abercrombie & Fitch because the clothes on display in the windows are not at all my style, and seem overpriced, and it never occurred to me to walk inside and take a peek. I know I am dating myself, but to me, Abercrombie & Fitch kind of screams, “HEY! Are you the next preppy murderer?! Then you should dress yourself here!” I certainly don’t assume that the people who DO shop there are all in the “I hate uglies” club (or, for that matter, preppy murderers). Truth is, I love me some Walmart, and plenty of people write articles about the horrors of mean and terrible Walmart, and if I tried to care, I would fail, because I don’t.

So the CEO of this place is anti-overweight. Meh. Whatever.

But I do take issue with his assertion that the reason he markets to the skinnies is because they are all beautiful. It seems to imply that the fatties are all ugly. And I mean, come on now. Really? Really dude who looks like this:

Dude. You’re almost 70. And you are not fully fatty. But um, your neck rolls are not exactly screaming “young hot sexy.” I’m just sayin’.

The truth of it is, beauty is subjective. There is no description of beautiful. So when Mr. Jeffries states one, I think even HE knows that there is no possible way for it to be effective or accurate. He is practically 70, so he is clearly old enough to know there are ugly skinny people in the world, be it because they are physically unattractive or just their personalities are offensive to general humankind. I know he gets it. So heck, maybe he was just making sure to say some wacko stuff to make sure that his brand remains relevant. After all, Abercrombie & Fitch appeared to struggle in 2012, with weak sales and plans to start shutting stores. So hey, say something CRAY-CRAY (see what I did there?) and they will come, even to protest, but there’s no such thing as bad publicity.